The Institute for Erotic Intelligence announces

The Somatic Sex Education Apprenticeship Program

an intensive, immersion program for students in-residence in Boulder, Colorado
February – July 2019

Somatic Sex Education is one of the most promising healing modalities of our time. Part relationship, intimacy and sexuality coach, part counselor, part traditional bodyworker, and part soul-centric guide, the well-heeled somatic sex educator is the practitioner uniquely equipped to confidently dive into the terrain most other practitioners are unable to enter. Somatic sex educators weave a breadth of tools, languages and evidence-based interventions most practitioners do not have. The terrain the somatic sex educator traverses is arguably some of the most essential terrain for our modern human healing and wholing. The wounds we carry – wounds that are the result of wide-spread cultural shaming and violence, lack of (or erroneous) information about our bodies, our erotic selves and our innate wildness, social isolation and increasing cultural alienation and so much more – are no longer addressed (if they ever were) by traditional psychotherapy, life coaching or psychopharmacological interventions.

The somatic sex educator understands that our relationship with our sex, our sexuality, and the state of our erotic intelligence and wellness are at the very foundation of our humanity. And therefore, these facets of our human experience determine our capacity to be resiliently well (or not) within a culture that has demonized these very things for millennia.

The Somatic Sex Education Apprenticeship is unique in a number of ways. It is the only program structured as an immersive, hands-on, mentorship and apprenticeship. In addition to the traditional training and academic structure of most other SSE programs, students will be working as apprentices. Under careful guidance with mentors (who are established somatic sex educators in private practice) and founder Christiane Pelmas, students will be working as apprentice/staff in The Verdant Collective, a 4-month immersion program for women, focused on the intersection of our rewilding, belonging, erotic intelligence, sovereignty and soul. This experimental structure will provide 3 pioneering students with everything you need to soundly begin a career as a somatic sex education practitioner.

The 6 month Somatic Sex Education Apprenticeship Program Basics:

Part I: Your Own Journey of Healing* & Wholing*

*Healing – the process of repairing the torn fibers of your sense of belonging in and to The World, the numinous place from which we come, to which we will return. The radical work of initiating one’s self into adulthood, with the help of one’s people, human and more than human.

*Wholing – the process of offering your unique and precious gifts to the world, according to your nature, based on the lineage gifts you carry and the specific way they manifest themselves through you.

As both a participant and a fledgling facilitator/practitioner you will explore the foundations of your own core erotic wellness within safe and co-created women’s intimate community. You will also have the opportunity to assist in the teaching, both didactic and hands-on, as you begin to find your own unique practitioner’s voice. You will be responsible for co-mentoring your own group of Collective participants and for helping to create and deliver curriculum, while held in a tight container of mentorship and guidance.

Part II: Core Principles of Somatic Sex Education

A. Theory – Somatic Sex Education utilizes relevant evidence-based research and practices from a diverse range of healing models and fields. In this program you will have the opportunity to learn, both didactically and hands-on, some of the most exciting developments in the fields of Trauma healing, Attachment/Attunement and Interpersonal Neurobiology, Sexual Wellness and more. There will be reading and practice homework assignments simultaneous to your apprenticeship responsibilities.

B. Practice – The four 4-day Collective immersions will comprise only part of your opportunity to practice what you’re learning, within the safe and carefully mentored structure of the apprenticeship program. In addition to these weekend immersions you will be given the opportunity to practice within your apprenticeship cohort, with your mentors and with practice partners from your own community of friends and family. A key aspect of your training will be a thorough, and on-going dance with your own concept of Ethics and Values as a practitioner in a highly vulnerable, critically intimate modality. You will be expected to grapple intimately and intelligently with the questions: What does it mean to be an ethical practitioner? and What does it require to be an ethical practitioner? Here we step far beyond the simple restrictions and regulations governing most clinical modalities to ask of you that you develop your own living, ever-adapting yet thoroughly grounded and transparent practices, to which you are wed in a fluid and organic way.

Part III: The Incorporation of Soul-Centric Practices; Mirroring, Reflection, Initiatory Rites of Passage & Our Essential Belonging to The More Than Human World

A fundamental and unique aspect of the Colorado Somatic Sex Education Apprenticeship Program is its focus on our human belonging in the larger web of The World. Our erotic wellness, its vibrancy and intelligent resilience, is a core aspect of our capacity to be well embedded in The World itself, to feel our essential belonging, to understand the unique gifts we carry for our people and to behave as responsible, generous and benevolent participants.

For a more detailed breakdown of the curriculum please email us.

The Structure and Schedule of the Apprenticeship Program:

4 1-Day Trainings:
March 6th, 10 - 6pm
April 10th, 10 - 6pm
May 15th, 10 - 6pm
June 19th, 10 - 6pm

4 4-Day Immersions (The Verdant Collective):
Thursday – Saturday 10 - 6, Sunday 10 - 3
March 7-10
April 11-14
May 16-19
June 20-23

In addition, we will schedule 2, 2-hour events: an initial opening ceremony and a final closing ceremony for the Apprenticeship Program. These ceremonies will take place sometime in February and July.

Phone Calls for The Verdant Collective (which Apprentices are expected to attend and participate in):
February 20, 7pm - 9pm
March 20, 7pm - 9pm
April 24, 7pm - 9pm
May 29, 7pm - 9pm

Phone Calls specifically for the Apprenticeship Program:
2 60-minute calls per month with mentor

Tuition for the 6 month Somatic Sex Education Apprenticeship program is $4450*
(or $350 deposit + 6 monthly payments of $685)

*$350 deposit due upon acceptance into the Apprenticeship. Payment in full or payment plan must be initiated by February 15th, 2019. Please note, payment plans include a small convenience fee. Tuition does not include travel, accommodations or meals.